Tag: humility

Humility Doesn’t Come From Self-Doubt

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Moses was the most humble of men, yet he was a strong and powerful leader. And not just because He had God for a Boss.

Humility is often confused, I believe, with meekness, and meekness is confused with self-doubt and weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It takes great strength and confidence to be humble. Why? Because those who are humble can put others before themselves, not because they believe others are more important or deserving, but because they treat others as they would want to be treated. People who lack self-confidence are weak and do not treat others well because they want to do what they know is right: they treat others with a higher sense of importance and with more respect than they have for themselves because they lack self-respect. They also will do the opposite- they will “lord it over others”, as Yeshua said people do, to make themselves feel important. Humble people have the strength to do what they know to be right because they know they are no more important or better than anyone else, and to do that you have to have a strong sense of self.

Now, I ‘m no psychologist and I may not be absolutely on the money with this personal diagnosis, but I have been around the block more than once, and I know people. I also know myself, as such, I recognize my weaknesses and remember how it was when I felt less important than others. We have friends who are more influential, we have friends who are richer, and we have friends who are less influential and with less money. The things that the world judges us by are not important to us, but we can’t avoid them. I know that God gives us a spirit of victory, and that isn’t just over sin, but over ourselves. It’s more important, in fact, to overcome ourselves.

Didn’t God ask Cain why was he was so upset when his offering wasn’t accepted? Did God tell him that if he does what is right he will be accepted, and that sin is crouching at his door and he has to master it? That’s the lesson here,  that’s what strength through humility gives us- the ability for me to master myself, and the ability for you to master yourself.

Moses knew this. When he was accused by the people he immediately fell to his face and begged them not to do so because he knew that God saw this as an attack against Him, not Moses. And we hear God tell the people this, over and over. Along with the humility Moses showed, he also showed his strength of character and willingness to stand up to those who were doing wrong. When Korach, Dathan and Abiram  accused him of being too bossy and hogging all the fame (so to speak) he showed humility, but when God told Moses to have all the men take their censors and meet before Him, Moses told them, in no uncertain way, that they were the ones in the wrong. He did not speak nastily to them or berate them, but he spoke the truth and stood up for what he knew was right.

The lesson we should learn is that when we profess to be Believers, and when we say we have the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) within us we should be able to find the strength to be humble. We should speak out boldly for the Lord and His ways, yet remain more concerned for the rights and well being of others before ourselves. Not because we think they are better, or because we don’t deserve nice things, but because we obey the Lord and know that means we should treat them as we want them to treat us, no matter how they really treat us.

We do what God says we should do and not because of what people do. That is the strength that comes from the Ruach, and that is how we are strengthened enough to be humble.

That’s really what humility is- doing what you know is right and not caring whether or not the people you treat correctly treat you that way. We are told how to treat people, and to wait upon the Lord when we, ourselves, are mistreated. God will judge. It isn’t “weak” to be mistreated, and it isn’t cowardly to turn the other cheek. That doesn’t mean you allow people to hit you, literally, it just means that we should be strong enough to take a few insults and be mistreated. There is nothing wrong with standing up for your rights, but we must do this while remembering that we are no better than anyone else, and that we can “take it” because God is our Judge, not people.

Show your strength and the power of God that lives in you by being humble and unassuming. When God first appeared to and spoke to the Children of Israel He thundered and flamed on the top of Mt. Horeb. It was very impressive. And when he appeared to Elijah in 1 Kings, He was not in the earthquake or the powerful wind, but he was a still, small voice.

We can be His emissary and His representative as that still, small voice.

Theodore Roosevelt said to speak softly and carry a big stick: God is the biggest stick that there ever was or will be, so we can speak softly and humbly, because we know the Big Stick that we carry.

 

Are You (uh, hold a sec…..got it, tnx….OK- I’m back) Distracted?

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Miss Manners agreed with a woman who was complaining that when people call others it shouldn’t be when they are distracted. She said she gets calls from people who freely admit they are just a few cars behind the drive through window or doing something else that makes her wait for them to get back on. She said she doesn’t call people back until she has the ability to be undistracted, and when she receives a call she turns off the TV, or the radio, whatever, to be fully attentive.

How many times do we pray while distracted. I say this, and confess I am probably one of the guiltiest of all for doing this. I pray most often while driving to work. I don’t know if it is more of a private time with God or a test of Him to keep me safe.

We should pray in solitude, in a peaceful environment and undistracted. I am alone in the car, and the radio is off, but I am certainly distracted. Oh, yeah, I’m a New York driver- the long pedal is supposed to be all the way down and that other pedal, well, I don’t know what that’s for. But, I still have to watch where I’m going, so I am distracted.

We are told to pray constantly. We are also told that prayer should come from the heart, and a broken and contrite spirit will not be turned away by God. Have you been there? Have you found yourself so deeply embedded in prayer that you cry? That you feel almost like you are in God’s presence, floating, those little chills going from your head to your toes, knowing that the Lord is embracing you as He embraces your prayers? I remember those feelings, and once in a blue moon I am there. But it’s rare, and that’s my fault. I can’t be fully in prayer when I am doing something else.

So, do as I say and not as I do. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted when praying. Especially in your house of worship. Shaul admonishes us in a couple of his letters about prayer. Talking in tongues, praying on and on like pagans, looking silly (my word) when praying. I have heard people just ramble in prayer: I can literally hear them searching for something to say, like they need to orate ad infinitum to gain God’s attention: “And, Father God, I…uh…um…I pray to you, Father God, for …uh….for….Father God, ..uh…” Just stop! Just say, “Thank you, Lord, for everything. In Yeshua’s name I pray, Amen.”

One of the most powerful prayers I ever heard was when Moses asked God to heal Miryam after striking her with leprosy for talking against Moses (Numbers 12). Here is his big sister, who risked her life to follow him as a baby in the basket (nile crocodiles hang around in the marshes and can be up to 20 feet long and weigh about a ton) and who has been a great help to him and supported him all his life, and now she is as white as a ghost. What does Moses say? The man who can talk to God  face-to-face, a friend of God, a fore-runner of the Messiah: does he go on and on about curing her, or how powerful God is, or why God should listen to him? No. All he says is, “Oh Lord…please heal her.”

And that was all God needed to hear. Why? I think because it was from the heart. It wasn’t King James vocabulary, it wasn’t a Dylan Thomas-like rendering of beautiful poetry, it was just a  simple, heartfelt and sincere request.

We don’t need to be in prayer for hours. I sometimes am. This habit I have of praying on the way to work started when I was in sales and a real Road Warrior, doing some 850-1,000 miles of driving a week. I sometimes was in prayer for an hour or more and never realized how long it was. I also often find myself distracted not just by traffic but by my own thoughts. I start to ask God for something, then go off on a tangent and later realize I have been rehearsing a speech to someone, or  talking to myself, or thinking of what to write in this blog, or just auto-piloting the car. You know, when you have been driving somewhere and suddenly realize you don’t remember the last 20 miles at all? And then I realize that my prayer has been distracted, and I ask God’s forgiveness.

He is God. He is the Almighty, the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, and Host of Hosts. He is the creator of all things, our Father in Heaven, our Judge, our Saviour. He deserves our undivided attention, but does He get it?

I confess, to my shame, not from me. Not as often as He should. I pray silently  to Him when at Shabbat services, often with the worship music in the background. But that is only once a week. All the rest of the time I am praying in the car, or on my bike in the mornings when I am exercising.  I am not concentrating directly and fully on God.

I would like to develop a better prayer habit. One where I am doing my devotional and prayer time silently, in solitude and undistracted. Honestly, it worries me that I may end up not having time for other things, because sometimes we can get lost in prayer. That’s not a bad thing, not at all, if it is really deeply involved in communion with God. I don’t know. I am just so happy that He is forgiving and compassionate and that He understands our weaknesses.

So there you have it. I am not a good pray-er. I can sometimes pray with the best of them, but that is not as often as it should be. I need to be better- no excuses, no more worrying about where to find the time. The time is always there, we just need to organize it.

Has any of this struck home? Do you see yourself doing the same thing with your prayers? Are you one of those that find yourself rambling too often? Searching for something else to say because you feel your prayer isn’t “good” enough?

If you pray from your heart, if you keep it simple and honest, if you only ask for what you need today and when you pray for others you really mean it, that’s all you need. God isn’t impressed by our rhetoric or language, but He can be moved by a sincere, loving and humble attitude of prayer. And, you need to do it when it is just you and Him. No more distractions.

I truly believe that when we pray to God in solitude, sincerely and openly, with a humble and worshipful respect for who He is, we will commune with Him in such a full and  spiritually rewarding way that His presence will be so real we will be able to reach out and touch it.

At least, that’s what I am going to try to do in my own life. Starting today.

What about you?

Humility Takes Strength

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Here’s something I can really talk about, but not necessarily relate to: humility. I can talk about it because of the old adage, “Those who can’t do, teach.”

As a Marine (once a Marine, always a Marine) I used to say, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re the best”, and that’s true for the Marine Corps, but not always for me.

When I think of a humble person I think of a shy, quiet person who won’t speak up, who will follow the crowd so as not to make a scene or be set apart, and of someone who is, generally, ineffective at leadership.  This is the kind of picture I think many people have of someone who is called “humble.”

Then I think of Moshe. The Manual says he was the meekest/humblest of all men. Yet, he led over a million people for four decades. He stood up against the most powerful ruler in the world at that time. He gave up riches and power (being raised in the Pharaoh’s household) to become a shepherd, and he had anger management issues (he did commit murder, remember?)

When I feel humble it’s usually because I have been knocked down by someone, belittled and made to feel unimportant. That is not a “godly” humility: that is absement. Negative thoughts about ourselves and feelings of despair are the tools of the Enemy. God wants us to acknowledge His authority and His power, without feeling belittled. We should be awed by Him, not embarrassed. And if someone abases us, because of the Spirit that dwells within us we should be strong enough not to react with anger but with understanding.

Humility takes strength because we need to be strong enough to accept our position in relation to God, and our position within society.  We need to overcome our selfish and egocentric inclinations to “get back” at someone who hurts us or embarrasses us and understand that they must be hurting terribly to do such a cruel and heartless thing. Moshe was a strong leader, yet he remained humble. When the people threatened to stone him and Aaron, he didn’t call down fire on them or curse them; instead, he fell to the ground before the Lord and asked for forgiveness for them. When offered the opportunity (more than once) to become the progenitor of a great nation, he refused and reminded God about His promises. In the light of this great honor, all Moshe could think of was God’s glory, and God’s reputation.

Now that is a humble person. Moshe showed great strength, spiritual maturity and concern not for himself but for God and the people that were his responsibility. He wasn’t weak, not by a long shot!

There is another old saying I will remind us of: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Just look throughout history at leaders, all leaders, in all countries. Despots, tyrants, Presidents, Emperors, whatever the title, those in power have often (too often) fallen down from the high position of humility and sank to the lowest position of self- importance. Isn’t that how it ends up? Doesn’t the Bible teach that God will bring the haughty down and raise up the meek? We are told this in the book of Proverbs, and Yeshua said it when He gave the Sermon on the Mount. Throughout the Tanakh we see how the humble who trust in God are protected and often raised up to positions of great importance, while those who are mighty and reject God become humbled by Him. Think of Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, when the king was made to eat grass for 7 years as Daniel made sure the kingdom was kept secure. Not for himself, as he could easily have been able to manipulate, but safe for the king because Daniel knew that God was going to restore him. Daniel was the second most powerful man in the most powerful kingdom in the world at that time, and he remained humble. How? Because he was a Godly man who knew his place, and what God wanted from him.

That’s our challenge. To remain humble, not as a result of telling ourselves how little we matter, or how terrible we are, but by understanding who we are: who we are in God, that God is in charge and we are here to serve Him as He directs. We are important, we are one step below the Almighty, above the angels and cherubim, and Sons and Daughters of Avraham (whether born that way or adopted.) And the best and most useful thing we can do is to give the Glory and the Honor to God, who made it all possible. We have talents, we are wonderful creations, renewed each day by His Spirit, we are the Temple of God’s Spirit itself! We are tremendously blessed and honored by the All Powerful Creator of Everything!

And without God we are nothing. Want to stay humble? Remember that it is God who made us what we are, and when we do wonderful things it is because of Him. We should not revel in our own “greatness”; instead, we should honor God by giving Him the glory and the honor that what we do has earned. People seek honor and glory, but we who know the Lord and have been saved by His Grace through Messiah Yeshua should seek honor and glory for God.

That’s the big difference: the unsaved seek glory for themselves, and the Godly seek glory for God. That’s how we remain humble.

It’s like I always say (and anyone who knows me will confirm that I am always saying something): What I do that is wonderful and good is from God doing it through me; when I screw something up, then I can take full credit.